Facile plasma-induced fabrication of fluorescent carbon dots toward high-performance white LEDs

In this study, we report a facile plasma-induced method to fabricate photoluminescent carbon dots (CDs) using acrylamide as the precursor in few minutes. The Fourier transform infrared spectra, UV-Vis absorption spectra, photoluminescence, fluorescent lifetime, and transmission electron microscopy of the as-prepared CDs were investigated thoroughly. The CDs have a narrow size distribution of 3-4 nm and exhibit strong blue fluorescence with quantum yield of ∼6 %. More importantly, we explored the CDs as color converters along with CdTe quantum dots to generate white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using a UV-LED chip as the excitation light source. Compared with the conventional YAG:Ce phosphor-based white LEDs, this resulted LED emitted white light with a higher color rendering index up to 87, which may find their potential in optoelectronic device.